The editors of USA Today see things very much as I do with respect to the aid bill for the states hit by Hurricane Sandy that’s making its way through Congress:
The spending least worthy of an emergency loophole is the billions the bill demands for projects to protect against damage from future storms. Most or all of this spending makes sense. Protecting subway tunnels from flooding could save millions in the next storm, for example, and coastal communities behind sand barriers weathered the storm much better than those that elected not to build them.
The question is who should pay, and how. The Sandy bill unwisely changes the traditional cost-sharing formula that requires state and local governments to put up 35% of the funding for such projects, dropping that to just 10%.
Working-class towns might not be able to afford the tens of millions it costs to build sand barriers, but New York and New Jersey, for all their own budget woes, are relatively well-off states. It’s a matter of priorities.
Yes, we’re one country. What I’m curious about is why a non-emergency subsidy for Greenwich, Connecticut, for example, is more worthy of support than aid for poor kids in inner city Chicago? Aren’t they part of that “one country”, too?